GOSHEN — The South Side Soda Shop will be featured this Friday on the Food Network’s “Triple D Nation: All-American Eats.”
Season 6, Episode 12, airing on Friday, will feature the family-owned South Side Soda Shop, calling it in the episode description “a family-run Triple-D.O.G. in Goshen,” that is “is still crankin’ out killer comfort with their savory snapper soup.”
For the Food Network, it’s a return to a well-loved episode during the early days of “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives: Triple D Nation.”
The South Side Soda Shop premiered on Food Network in 2007 during the first season of “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives: Triple D Nation” 18 years ago.
“It’s a fabulous show,” said South Side Soda Shop co-owner Nick Boyd. “It was a really cool concept.”
Featuring Guy Fieri, “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives: Triple D Nation” searches out, according to Boyd, mom and pop shops that make a lot of food from scratch. Boyd recalled that back in 2007, they didn’t have a website but the production company saw a picture online of the outside of the shop and contacted owners. Boyd said in the beginning they believed it to be a prank, but Boyd-Lehman convinced her mom to call back anyway and ultimately the production crew came out to film.
“It filled such a void for what people were looking for because back then it wasn’t as much about remaining local and shopping and eating local, a lot of people were still just doing the chain thing,” Boyd-Lehman said.
The show beefed up service at the shop and still today Boyd-Lehman said the show brings people from around the country to the Goshen-based restaurant due to reruns. But for the last few seasons, Fieri and the crew of “Triple D Nation: All-American Eats” has been returning to the well-loved locations featured in the series.
“It’s incredible, still, how many people we see coming to the Michiana area just because they saw us on a rerun or some kind of list on the internet,” Boyd-Lehman said. “There’s been a couple of cookbooks that have come out of Triple D.”
Unlike the 2007 episode, for the 2024 return of the production crew, South Side Soda Shop employees and owners had to keep the news under wraps. Boyd-Lehman and Boyd said it’s been difficult to not share the excitement with the community.
Boyd-Lehman said they are also preparing for an expected influx of guests as they experienced during the first time the show aired. Boyd said the exposure also helps the rest of the downtown area.
People, we invite them to go downtown and explore the wonderful shops that we have so hopefully Food Network is not just benefitting our restaurant but all businesses locally,” Boyd said.
People are looking for small businesses to support when they’re traveling,” Boyd-Lehman added. “I definitely think that’s one of the best things that Triple D has done is remind people to go back to the local restaurants, to support the mom and pop shops.”
The episode will feature the shop’s Snapping Turtle Soup and Fresh Peach Pie, along with notable items from other restaurants across the country. Boyd-Lehman said the episode also focuses this time around more heavily on cooking and featured recipes.
